Wednesday, October 4, 2017

UFC's top contender at 155 pounds, Tony "El Cucuy" Ferguson (22-3, 12-1 UFC) has won 9 straight UFC bouts since a decision loss to Michael Johnson in 2012. Ferguson was to fight Khabib Nurmagomedov at UFC 209, but Khabib had to go to the hospital with difficulty cutting weight. Ferguson has some unique training methods, as seen below.

Friday, September 8, 2017

Bad management is why he’s not a household name in the world of mixed martial arts. Bad management is why he never really sold a lot of UFC tickets.

Of course, he could have done both of those things if he had a manager who believed in him.

The mixed martial artist in question is the great Marco Ruas. He had just 15 professional fights and all but one occurred after his 30th birthday.

“I feel mad for that. I wanted to fight more fights.”

His professional record is 9-4-2. His was 4-2 in six UFC bouts.

His shining moment occurred in 1995 when he won the tournament competed at UFC 7: The Brawl in Buffalo. He did so by defeating Larry Cureton, Remco Pardoel, and Paul Varelans.
Ruas made Cureton and Pardoel tap out. He then captured the tournament title with a TKO of Varelans. Varelans is seven inches taller than the 6’1” Ruas and outweighed him by more than a hundred pounds.

In December, at Ultimate Ultimate 1995, Ruas defeated Keith Hackney. At the same event, he lost to Oleg Taktarov via a controversial decision. The two fought nearly a year later but the match ended in a draw.

From there, Ruas had six more pro fights. He won half of them. Two of his three losses occurred to Maurice Smith, once at UFC 21 in July of 1999 and then again at an IFL event in 2007. During the last fight, Ruas was 46.

Born in Rio de Janeiro, Ruas is the founder of Ruas Vale Tudo, a mix of kickboxing and Brazilian submission fighting. While he was admired for his awesome kicking skills, Ruas brought a well-rounded style to MMA during an era when everyone was concentrating on jiu-jitsu.

“I trained everything, a long time before everybody. I trained judo, I trained karate, I trained capoeira, luta livre, jiu-jitsu. I trained everything.”

His professional record may not be as robust as others, but if you include his street fights, estimated to be somewhere between 300 and 1,000 contests, his resume easily enters legendary status.

Regardless of the number, he didn’t just fight on the streets of Rio. He won.

“In the streets, I’m undefeated. Nobody beat me.”

That leads us to his nickname, “King of the Streets.” It’s a clever play on words as Ruas means “streets” in Portuguese, the official language of Brazil.

Quotes taken from MMA Junkie article: “Pioneer Marco Ruas looks back on contribution to MMA, wishes he'd had more UFC fights.” published 12/26/16

Photo Credit: Doug Churchill on location at Emily studio on the Street Scene set. Courtesy of Flickr. Believed to be in the public domain.

Thursday, August 31, 2017

Kazushi Sakuraba - By the MMA Blaster
The extremely entertaining Kazushi Sakuraba (26-17) appears to have retired from MMA for good, after dropping his last five bouts which were well after his prime. Sakuraba was the face of Pride during its early days, eventually handing off the reigns to Fedor and Wanderlei Silva. Sakuraba will return for a grappling match against Dan Henderson at Rizen FF 7 in Japan.

Sakuraba's skills inside the ring were legendary, improvising kicks, punches, submissions, and passes that had never been seen before. Watching Sakuraba put his body on the line time and time again was something of beauty. Weighing 183 pounds, and sometimes less, he usually faced opponents with a considerable size, reach and strength advantage.

Sakuraba started as an amateur wrestler, wrestling in college and eventually placing fourth in the Japan championship. After graduating, Sakuraba started his career in professional wrestling and began to get schooled in catch wrestling.

Sakuraba was placed in the UFC Japan tournament only after another Japanese pro wrestler was injured. In his first bout with Marcus Silveira (6-4) John McCarthy incorrectly stopped the bout and reversed his call. The match was repeated for the championship and Sakuraba won via arm bar to be one of the last UFC tournament champs.

Sakuraba entered Pride and posted an armbar victory over Vernon White in his first fight. His second Pride fight was one of the best grappling displays ever in an MMA match against Carlos Newton (UFC WW champ) which Sakuraba eventually won via kneebar.

After a draw with Allen Goes , Sakuraba dominated Vitor Belfort (UFC LHW champ) with leg kick after leg kick and crazy guard passes for an innovative decision victory. He beat Royce Gracie (3X UFC Tournament Champ) in an unlimited time match in the 6th round. That fight single handedly erased much of the Royce Gracie hype and may have been the best he ever looked.

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